Click Here for Update 10
: Before we go to Aoba Park, we have a couple of side things to do. First, we need to hand in the Dresser Hag quest (which I forgot to do entirely) before we do the next dungeon. It becomes unavailable after that even if you’ve completed it. : This is also your last opportunity to feed 10,000 yen into the dog statue to get two incense sets, but given what’s going on right now I think we can safely say fuck that. : Aoba has a lot of stuff in it. This is actually where you start the game in Eternal Punishment - Kismet Publishing is where Maya works. We’re going to take a brief detour to Sumaru TV. It’s not part of a quest, but.. : It’s weird to me that they’d phrase it like that, because in this game a phrase like “whose popularity is skyrocketing right now” would imply that he’s allied with Joker. He’s not. : In case you haven’t read the Persona 1 LP, Brown was one of the four possible party members you could choose from in the main route. We wound up using him for Snow Queen. : On with the side stuff. First, we want to talk to this guy outside of Aoba Park. : This is a sidequest that’s technically worth the 3,000 yen admission price, but you’d need a guide (or repeated playthroughs of Aoba Park) to figure out how to actually get your money’s worth in most cases. : We can also meet another rumormonger if we go to Double Slash in the Aoba Way mall. : Baofu is a party member in Eternal Punishment. We’ve actually met him in person already in this game, but in a throwaway scene you’re not likely to remember by the time you get around to EP. I haven’t played EP yet, so I’ll just spoilertext it: Baofu is the drunken guy that was in Tatsuya’s flashback in the bunker at Kasugayama High. : Baofu doesn’t have any useful information for us just yet, but it’s good to know this is how you contact him. : Our second stop is back at Shiraishi Ramen, where we turned the owner into a Russian spy. The guy standing next to Maya offers us a sidequest. : This sidequest is a reference to a Japanese pop musician by the name of Linda Yamamoto. She’s kind of like a Japanese Cher, in that she was big in the 60s and 70s and then disappeared for a while only to be revived every few decades like some kind of musical Dracula. : As the fan mentions, she did something that at the time was seen as scandalous: namely exposing her midriff while performing. Probably her most famous song is called Sharpshoot, which appeared in Ouendan 1 and is the only song from that game I refuse to have on my MP3 player because god her voice is like a goddamn cheese grater. : We also want to talk to Chikarin, who for some reason has the rumors we want to spread in regards to weapon and armor stores in Aoba. : The next stop is Todoroki, in order to spread a couple of rumors. We want to spread both of the ones Chikarin gave us, as well as “An idol’s ghost has been sighted!” and “Flowers can talk.” : I stopped at Claire de Lune to buy weapons, and ran into.. Linda Yamamoto. Apparently, having a rumor spread that you’re dead does not actually kill you, meaning that unfortunately, Hanya is probably alive. This will actually prove to be a major plot point.. in Persona 5 Royal. I’m thinking of dunking on that after I finish Innocent Sin. : I just wanted to point out a couple of things. First, I forgot to actually equip any of the armor we bought the last time we went to a store. Second, this is the weapon we found for Yukino inside Giga Macho, which I remind you was the last dungeon we finished not even half an hour ago. Would you believe me if I told you there’s a weapon for Tatsuya in the next dungeon that’s already obsolete when we pick it up? : Our last stop is the Velvet Room. I was kind of shocked that we can fuse Nemesis as a Persona, given its status as a boss in Persona 1. Unfortunately, Nemesis is not great and we won’t be fusing it.
New Persona: Gandharva
Origin: India (Hindu)
First Appearance: Megami Tensei II (NES)
: At first, I thought fusing Gandharva was a mistake. I accidentally gave him to Tatsuya, who he only has neutral compatibility with. as it turns out, fusing him was not a mistake.
New Persona: Otohime
Origin: Japan
First Appearance: Shin Megami Tensei II (SNES)
: Otohime is key to a couple of fusion spells I pick up in Aoba Park. She was one of the worst things to fight when I did the Thanatos First route in Persona 1, and was kind of a garbage Persona in that game, but here she’s much better. : Just north of the entrance to Aoba Park is our first talking flower. These all work the same: they ask you a question, and if you answer correctly they give you an item. If you don’t, they either poison you, do damage to the entire party, or put people to sleep. : The correct answer here is the second one. : Aoba Park is largely full of the same demons we fought at Giga Macho, only there’s more of them per encounter. This proves to be kind of annoying: Tengu (in the back) are immune to wind and Kinnara (in front) are immune to fire. This means we can’t use Mega Blaze or Maxi Tempest to wipe them all out at once. : We run into Linda not long after entering. She’s a pretty straightforward fight - no major resistances and weak to all physical damage types. : She drops her bra, which we can turn in for a reward. : Kiyohime was a rare spawn in Giga Macho that I never saw despite going through Giga Macho twice. Here, she’s much more common. If you make a pact with any demon in Aoba Park, make it with Kiyohime: she gives 20 Free Cards per negotiation and is the reason I wound up with over 400 free cards by the end of Aoba Park. : Aoba Park is kind of annoying because as you can see on the map, most of the hedges are not marked. That red grate is a damage floor, but unlike Giga Macho we can avoid all of them. : Fjalar is one of the two new enemies for Aoba Park, and also the only one we can’t negotiate with due to him being one level above us… even though Yukino has him as a Persona. They’re usually not worth fighting because they only come alone or with one other Fjalar, and the EXP for fighting them isn’t great. : We do a big loop, and wind up at the second flower. : I feel like this flower would not be out of place as an Animal Crossing villager. : After I met this flower, I realized I had made a few tactical errors. First, I forgot to actually fuse that Angel I said I did a few updates ago, so I had no source of healing. Second, I had equipped Gandharva to Tatsuya not knowing they had neutral compatibility. I wound up mutating Surya (Tatsuya’s old Persona) into Fukurokuju but never used him.
New Persona: Fukurokuju
Origin: Japan
Persona 2 Original
: Fukurokuju doesn’t really add anything to our elemental coverage, and in fact makes it worse. : Back in Aoba Park again, I discovered a couple of new fusion spells we can do. : Towering Inferno is like Blazing Burst, only it takes three people and doesn’t scale with Dexterity. It’s not great, but it’s there. It’s performed by casting a water spell, an earth spell, and a fire spell in that order. : Next, I discover our replacement for Mega Blaze. Sonic Wave also doesn’t scale, but it does Ma-dyne tier damage. : I’m pretty sure that the first part of Aoba Park is bigger than Mu was. : There’s a Vitality card here which is really the only important piece of loot in the entire dungeon. : The gate here is a load screen that leads into the second part of Aoba Park. : This also sounds like an Animal Crossing villager, only one of the original Gamecube/N64 ones. : The answer we want here is “Thorns and poison”. : This bead pretty much makes up for the cost of the rumor. : The North side of Aoba Park has a trash can in it with a unique item, but it’s kind of already obsolete. The blue grate above Tatsuya is a damage floor that damages SP. : First though, we run into Angel, the other new enemy in Aoba Park. I also realized that I fused an Angel but never actually put it in the Persona roster so I wound up just using items to heal instead. : The unique item is the Rainbow Light. It’s a “material card” which works a lot like the totem items in Persona 1. You make a Persona of the correct arcana and add the Rainbow Light as a material card to get a different Persona. : I’ll post Iris’s stat sheet so you can understand why we’re not fusing her. : Part of the problem is that Iris doesn’t really offer anything that our existing Personas don’t, and she also mutates into Fukurokuju, who we already have. : There’s a light blue flower in the middle of the area that doesn’t do anything. : Just south of it, however, is a pretty well-hidden area with a box in it. : The Kiku-Ichimonji is already obsolete by the time we find it. It has better crit percentage, but I think we’ve physically attacked only a handful of times in this entire game thus far. : North of the flower that doesn’t do anything is this flower, who is an asshole. He’ll either take everyone’s HP to 1 or take everyone’s SP to 1 in exchange for a Revival Bead, which is absolutely not worth it. : In the elbow-shaped area is a box with a unique demon encounter in it. I forget what they’re called, and they died in one Sonic Wave so yeah. : Right before the exit to the concert area, there’s a final flower that’ll ask you which flower is the most beautiful. The correct answer is “they’re all equally beautiful” which gets you a Balm of Life. : Who builds a concert stage in the middle of a giant hedge maze?
: “Even if we lie and say we’re here for an interview, they’ll find out once they realize we don’t have an appointment.”
: “Hey, gang! There’s some guys who look like part-time staff over there. They’re slacking on the job, seems like.”
: “Yeah, looks that way. But if they’re part-timers, they might have employee badges. Why don’t we offer to buy 'em? Just say that we couldn’t get concert tix.”
: “Even if they try to gouge us a little, easier to grease some palms than start a commotion.”
: “Yeah, you’re right! Let’s try Yukki’s plan. Tatsuya-kun, will you do the honors?”
: “Do all blonde-haired people automatically speak English!? Is it weird for a blue-eyed girl to know Japanese? Am I some freak?”
: “So, so I was bullied for it as a kid, but now it’s ‘cool’? It’s ‘unique’? I’m tired of other people deciding how to define me!”
: “My dad never taught me a word of English… but everyone assumes all foreigners can speak it… they have to stand out…”
: “What am I supposed to do? I’m… I’m just like anyone else… just a normal girl…”
: “I knew it! You two are in the Masked Circle!”
: “W-well… it was so sudden…”
: “I-I had a dream! But… I lost it, so…”
: “That’s… that’s a lie. What about the shadowmen, huh!? Why is he stealing everyone’s dreaming hearts?”
: “What’s your ultimate aim in harvesting people’s dreaming hearts with those skulls!? What is this ‘End of Nahui-Ollin’!?”
: “If you want to know, I have a game for you. My duty is to ignite the flames of expiation to the lands shown by the celestial heavens. Four pillars of fire will rise..”
: “Hahahaaaa! One is here.. scour this hall to discover the next target. Somewhere here, you shall find a gracious riddle! Hahahaaa.. hyaaaahhahahahahaaaaa! Hurry, whelps! This park will soon be engulfed in flames!”
: “Maya-san!? Wh-what’s wrong!? Calm down!”
: “What the-- those burns on your hands… what in the world…?”
: “What’s with her all of a sudden!? You gotta do something, Tatsuya!”
: “I’m sorry… I’m.. I’m okay now… I’m just… so scared of his fires… Shameful, isn’t it?”
: “Thanks, Tatsuya-kun. You’re so kind… I’m okay now. Sorry about that, everyone. C’mon, we need to find the Masked Circle’s next target! Let’s see here…”
: “Twelve beasts crown the Pleiades, when the winds of change blow, all descend with smiles to the netherworld…”
: “What the hell? What is this thing getting at?”
: “Excuse me… you’re Ms. Okamura from Sevens, right? My name is Maya Amano, I’m with Coolest’s editorial division.”
: “You mentioned the Oracle of Maia just now.. do you know something about it? If you don’t mind, I’d like --”
